Obviously, the company wanted a Hard Day’s Night for the Dave Clark Five. Instead, debuting director John Boorman and playwright Peter Nichols deliver a melancholy pop musical which feels like Antonioni’s lost Cliff Richard vehicle. A glumly unsympathetic lad (Clark) runs away with a top model (Barbara Ferris) whose manager claims he’s a kidnapper.
Travelling through wintery, desolate English countryside, the pair come across dropouts attacked by the army, middle-aged swingers hosting a costume party and a tatty cowboy resort run by David Lodge. Uniquely, it presents its pop hero as a bit of a misery and sympathises with the squares he bumps into. Boorman is already stranding alienated heroes in a beautiful but threatening landscape and wondering where the magic went. Plus: hit songs!